Timely hits move Mountaineers past Hokies
The West Virginia Mountaineers took on the Virginia Tech Hokies on Tuesday, and the Mountaineers had to hold off a late inning rally by the Hokies to earn the victory.
The Mountaineers were able to score five runs in the first six innings, and it looked like they were going to run away with this one. If it wasn’t for a late seventh inning rally by VT, the Mountaineers were looking to shut out the Hokies in front of 1,217 fans at Monongalia County Ballpark.
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The final score ended up being 5-4 in favor the Mountaineers. They did so by playing a bit of small ball. Scoring a run in each of the first five innings.
The beginning of the game went so well coach Randy Mazey had this to say: “We actually played pretty well early in the game, We got the leadoff man on in the first three innings. A couple of bunts, a couple hit-and-runs, executing, and the next thing you know we score in each of those innings. It’s a good team win. We’ve been winning games by slugging the ball around and we didn’t do that tonight and still won the game. It’s nice to know you can win games in different fashions.”
It’s a good team win. We’ve been winning games by slugging the ball around and we didn’t do that tonight and still won the game. It’s nice to know you can win games in different fashions.”
This is all according to wvusports.com
The craziest thing about this game was that the Mountaineers were out-hit by the Hokies, 10-8. However, WVU was just able to cash in on the few hits that were able to pull together. What was able to save West Virginia was the two errors committed by Virginia Tech to give WVU three unearned runs.
On the bump for the Mountaineers was freshman Braden Zarbnisky who was on his third consecutive start and earned the win. He did so through 4.0 innings, he gave up three hits, struck out three, and walked a man.
The game was started by a freshman, and finished off by a senior. Blake Smith was able to earn his sixth save of the year by pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
This game wasn’t all about the pitching, as the bats were alive for the Mountaineers. The hottest bat of the bunch was junior first baseman Jackson Cramer. He had two of the eight hits by WVU. One of his two hits was a solo home run in the fifth inning. The reigning Big 12 Player of the Week has put together six multi-hit games in seven outings
Virginia Tech was able to cut into the lead by WVU in the seventh inning. The Hokies did so by having the first three batters reach base, a ground-out scored one run and a single scored the other. At this point WVU brought in Conner Dotson who got the final two outs of the inning.
Freshman righty Endy Morales came in and pitched a scoreless eighth and Smith with a scoreless ninth to earn the save and give the Mountaineers the win 5-4.
The Mountaineers will now stay at home as they will take on Texas on May 6 for a weekend series. There will be a lot of festivities in this series that gets under way Friday night with fireworks after the game, then it’s family day on Sunday.